Rotting corpse found at U.S. military base in Okinawa

A human body decomposed “beyond recognition” has been found at a US military camp on the Japanese island of Okinawa, military and police officials said Friday.

The corpse was discovered Wednesday inside a former housing area at Camp Foster but the identity of the person, including their gender and approximate date of death, were unknown, a spokeswoman for the base said.

The United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service is leading a probe into the case, she added.

The body was badly decomposed, but was presumed to be that of an adult, said an official at Okinawa prefectural police headquarters.

It was found by Japanese workers contracted to dismantle buildings and survey the grounds in the housing area, which had been returned to Japanese administration, he said.

Okinawa is host to nearly half of the 47,000 US service personnel in Japan, with large tracts of land on the island chain taken up by bases and military housing complexes.